To become a celebrity your timing has got to be perfect. You have to have the right look or the right sound at the right time. You may have all the talent in the world but if you don't have the luck of timing, all the skill in the world aint going to get you a dang thing.
So, you must have perfect timing in life to get you to stardom but even more important then timing in life may be the timing of your death. Your demise will no doubt create buzz and increase your popularity but if you time it perfectly, you could launch your fame to icon status.
A celeb that died on time.
Kurt Cobain
Died at his peak: Always a plus. If you die when you're at the height of your popularity it increases the mystery and false hope of what more you could have done with all your talent. People will say that you were, "So talented and the best was still to come," causing the length of your talent to be endless. But, if you die after you peak then people will think, "It is sad that he died but his best years were behind him." I say "think" because people won't actually say it because they believe it will make them look insensitive but everyone will THINK it.
Outcome: Nirvana takes over in our minds as the ultimate grunge band. To us they became the ultimate band that summed up teenage angst in the early 90s. The number one band out of Seattle that changed what was considered Rock and Roll; from big hair and songs about excess to flannel and songs about rage and the unheard youth. But was that really true? Were they that good or did Kurt's perfectly timed death brainwash ourselves to think this way? Here is an excerpt from Chuck Klosterman's book Killing Yourself to Live.
What I seem to remember were the months prior to Kurt's suicide, and sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who does. And What I remember were people attacking Cobain at every turn. Everybody had purchased In Utero that fall, but not many people seemed to love it; the mainstream, man-on-the-street consensus was the Pearl Jam's Vs. was a little better. This is the biggest thing pop historians revise when talking about Nirvana: They never seem willing to admit that, by the spring of 1994, Pearl Jam was way more popular. It wasn't even that close. The week of it's release, Vs. sold more than 900,000 copies, a seven-day record that seemed unbreakable at the time. Pearl Jam was seen as the people's band; Nirvana was seen as the band that hated its own people. Nirvana dropped off the schedule for Lollapooza '94, and everyone blamed Kurt.
Kurt Cobain's death was timed so perfectly that it helped Nirvana leapfrog Pearl Jam as the quintessential gods of grunge.
... and a celeb that needs a death mulligan
Michael Jackson
What was wrong with his timing: Michael Jackson died way too late, way past his prime. For the last 20 years he has been a punchline of jokes. He has slowly turned into a mutant and had mothers grabbing their children and running away in fear. Every time his name came up in the news it was never a good thing.
You can say that you choose to remember Michael Jackson for the good: for the music. But, if Michael Jackson would have died at the right time you would not have to make this comment, because none of the bad would have ever taken place.
(I don't want to turn this into a Michael Jackson hate piece but those of you who say you remember Michael Jackson for the good and not the bad are ridiculous. I am sorry but you can not take the good without the bad because it is the same man. I know this is an extreme but it is almost like someone saying, 'I choose to remember Hitler as a painter and not as the devil." And don't tell me he was a victim of fame or had a bad childhood. A lot of people had this much fame and stayed sane. And a lot mass murders had poor childhoods. Do you want to defend them and turn them into victims?)
When he should have gone: The perfectly timed death for Michael Jackson would have been that Pepsi commercial in 1984. Could you imagine if instead of getting minor burns on his head if he would have burned to death in front of an entire audience at the Shrine Auditorium? It would have been a thing of legendary proportions. The number one pop-star in the world literally, "going down in a blaze of glory." He would have also died while on stage performing, the only place were he seemed at home.
Yes, this would mean that he would have died before the release of the album, Bad but it would also mean that he died right after Thriller: by far is best album, commercially and critically. So, that means he would have died at the apex of his career.